Yanjing Beer

2017

We were engaged by Yanjing Beer <燕京啤酒> to embark on a year long brand strategy rework and promotional advertisement campaigns design to improve consumer perception towards their brand, as well as to expand the target group of drinkers amongst the Guangzhou and Shenzhen audience by attracting more youths to their products.

The strategy we devised involved a concurrent print and digital approach. To reach the masses quickly, we had to utilise a localised approach of targeting all the tens of thousands of distributers in the form of small & large retail shops, restaurants and bars. To achieve that, we created a print branding campaign to sell forth the idea of how freshness, or the idea of feeling fresh is co-related with the Yanjing Beer products under the tagline <要新鲜，喝燕京>. Promotional materials and point-of-sales materials were created and distributed all over the region to enforce the brand positioning.

For the digital component, we launched a series of WeChat campaigns by creating a fictional character called the Yan ‘bro’ <燕兄>, the personification of the everyday guy. Two WeChat sticker <表情包> packs were also created and distributed to their followers that elaborates on the joys of having a beer with your friends, as well as the everyday life of people captured through whimsical emojis and quotes.

108 Brothers

2017

108 Brothers <108 兄弟> is a new brand of beer launched in China by parent beer company Yanjing Beer <燕京啤酒>, targetted at the younger generation of consumers. We were approached to design the branding and packaging, as well as engage the client in a year long market testing and launch of this new product.

Inspired by the Chinese classic Shui Hu Zhuan <水浒传> which is considered one of the four great classical novels of Chinese literature, it tells a tale of how a group of 108 outlaws gather at Mount Liang to form a sizable army before they are eventually granted amnesty by the government and sent on campaigns to resist foreign invaders and suppress rebel forces.

The essence of the tale is based on the strong brotherhood, loyalty and friendship amongst the characters, qualities which are extremely relevant in the urban packed environments of today's Chinese big cities where many people leave their hometowns and congregate from all other parts of the country in search of work; their closest sense of kin are through these bonds formed with the new friends they make.

We designed the brand mark around a fist bump; a universal symbol for brotherhood and shared values, an invitation to form a bond by having a drink together which revolves around the tagline <我不靠山，我靠兄弟>. 108 characters were illustrated based on characters in the novel, which were used to create 108 different beer can packagings.

Electric 8

2017

Electric 8 is a Singapore based, hands-on, digital consultancy that specialises in Product, UX, Design and Growth. We were approached to create a branding identity for this exciting startup which targets clientele at post-revenue stage looking for a formulaic way to scale their businesses.

Right off the back, we wanted to inject a sense of confidence, a less in your face undercurrent that shouts of the soul & energy associated with this forward–thinking firm through the design of the identity.

We crafted a contemporary and disciplined word mark that plays upon the notion of negative space; transforming the brand mark as a vehicle and container which depicts the subtle underlying buzz. The identity intelligently takes on whatever background colour and imagery it sits upon, a nod to how flexible and adaptable the firm's capabilities are.

Xun Tea

2017

Xun Tea (寻茶) is a new tea brand based in Beijing, China, targeting the gifting market. We were approached to design the brand identity and packaging for this new brand.

Inspired by the imagery portrayed in the painting Wanderer above the Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich, we wanted to capture the spirit of adventure and curiosity embedded within an explorer, and project the understanding of how new experiences brings forth a new way of seeing the world around you into the brand. Through this, we created a brand personality called Mr Xun (a play on the phonic of the chinese word '寻', which means to seek). Through Mr Xun's journeys around the world, he brings back new and exotic teas as gifts; through his teas, you are connected with the world.

Uber Vernacular

2018

Featuring the works of faculty members and students from the School of Art, Design and Media’s photography department, the exhibition explores how notions of place, and their ever-changing facets that are subjected to individual and collective experiences, can open themselves to other domains of inquiry, from the social and the cultural, and to the personal and the political.

Drawing upon the unique characteristics that define environments, habitats and spaces, each presentation in UBER-VERNACULAR can be seen as an observation, a reflection or a meditation on the manifold languages that can define the essence of a place across memory, space and time.

We designed the brand mark and collaterals to embody the spirit of this exhibition; utilising a typeface with distinct slants and offbeats to punctuate, reflecting how the common language and culture of a place when seen and presented through the lens of photography offers a shift in perspective.

What Is Essential Is Invisible To The Eye: Works of Lyota Yagi

2018

What is Essential is Invisible to the Eye, held at ADM Gallery of NTU School of Art, Design & Media, presents the works of Lyota Yagi which traverses a wide range of media and deconstructs their conventional modes of usage and reception. Central to his investigation of the properties of sound is how this ephemeral medium intersects with object-making in art, at times creating unforeseen forms of representation beyond the visual domain, providing viewers glimpses of the invisible aspects of the everyday through the experience of art, as well as conjuring one's imagination and ways of encountering that which may be inherently known, but often unseen.

We designed the exhibition brand mark using negative space to highlight and suggest what is actually there; an illusion which forces the viewers to imagine and fill in the gap, bridging the experience of what is invisible yet essential.

Exceptions of Rule: Counterpoints to Truth

2018

Contemporary artists have long been drawn to examining the blurred boundaries between fact and fiction. In recent times however, it is the interpretations of the former that has increasingly become a cause for suspect, and grounds for artists to relook prescribed beliefs. It is this condition of uncertainty regarding the relativity of subscribed truths that the exhibition Exceptions of Rule: Counterpoints to Truth, attends to, through the works of artists Song-Ming Ang (Germany / Singapore), A.R. Hopwood (United Kingdom) and Pak Sheung Chuen (Hong Kong).

Held at ADM Gallery of School of Art, Design and Media, the works can collectively be seen as provocations to domains of knowledge, and where unusual manoeuvres in art-making have the potential to become critical acts of discernment. The exhibition branding we designed conveys the ideas of the stretching of truth and challenges the notions of Fiction versus Reality.

Write a Christmas Card 2017

NTU International Photography Awards

2017

The NTU International Photography Awards (NTU IPA) is a biennale competition jointly organised by Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and National Geographic Live Singapore (Nat Geo Live).

The theme of NTU IPA 2017 is Art, Science and the Image. Science has long inspired art and artists, especially in the realm of photography. From the mechanical conceptions of the camera obscura to the chemistry- heavy analogue photography processes, photographers of the past have shown how they harnessed the scientific zeitgeist of their times to advance their art. Fast forward to the 21st century and we see how science and technology have integrated seamlessly into our everyday lives.

The brand mark of the award is heavily influenced by the importance of 'light'; how its integral to photography as a medium. Light reflects what the photographer sees. Through science (the photography medium), what the photographer sees is translated into art, where vision becomes 'tangible'

Visit the NTU IPA website here

In Praise Of Shadows

2017

Occupying a unique dimension between darkness and light, shadows accompany solid forms, asserting the presence of the self and tangible objects. Like a companion to all things physical, they suggest a parallel existence that mimics this reality, yet remains a realm that is enigmatic and transient.

The exhibition title is drawn from the 1933 essay of the Japanese novelist Junichiro Tanizaki by the same name that explores the aesthetics of shadows, celebrating the ambiguity and subtlety of colour, shade, texture and tone. In Praise of Shadows, the exhibition, features five artists Lavender Chang, John Clang, James Jack, Ishida Takashi and Warren Khong, whose works take these themes as an entry point to expand ongoing concerns in their respective practices.

The brandmark we designed for this exhibition plays on the illusion between the physical and shadow states; a reflection of the works' attempts to find meaning in between these realms. The idea follows through the rest of the environmental and collateral design, with the visual language framing the content it holds.

DNA Paris Design Awards 2020 — Winners in Graphic Design/Branding category